Let's start at the top - In order for public schools in Brazil to open their doors, they need funding from the State to pay its teachers, its staff, and order enough books and materials for its students to use in their preparation to become its country's future. That funding in the state of Espirito Santo, however, is withheld often because the quality of the State's future citizenry is not a priority.
During my visit at Aristobolo Barbosa Leao, I entered a school whose budget for paper had been cut off! Literally, there was no paper for teachers to hand out to students!!! So, of course, there was also no budget for hallways or classrooms to be decorated or painted. What little color there was in the school appeared indiscriminately as I walked up stairwells, through hallways, and into classrooms. Inside those classrooms though was a student body that made the most of their neglected status and filled their day (which ends at noon in Brazil) with laughter, conversation with friends, or their smartphones. But while I didn't witness any anger or fighting with the teaching staff, I didn't witness much education either. Often students spoke over teachers, teachers then spoke over students, who briefly quieted down for 15 minutes to listen until their attention waned again and the farce of education continued.
Upon reflection, it is very difficult to cast blame because there so many things going wrong at the same time.
At the bottom, students enter a disorganized world where the figures of authority and knowledge appear unprepared and impotent in their sincere desire to educate. As a result, these adolescents take advantage of their situation and approach their education as a cynical daily exercise that will not have any effect on their futures because their graduation is guaranteed so long as they "go through the motions." In addition, these students then go home to a family and society that "ranked second to last out of 21 countries on the Varkey Gems Foundation’s 2013 Global Teacher Status Index, which used surveys to compare teaching to other professions and gauges how much respect teachers get from the public."
In the middle, many (not most) of the teachers I met approached their profession on an hourly basis. As employees of a state government that grossly undervalues their labor, these teachers will work for up three schools simultaneously to get the most out of their employment contracts with state. (Crazy, right?)
What allows teachers to approach their job as they say in the states as a "hustle" is that Brazil's public schools are open from 7AM to 10 PM to make allowances for adolescents and adults who must work in the mornings or afternoons or evenings to support themselves and/or their families in the Brazilian economy. Unlike many developed nations, where education is valued enough financially to allow its citizens to not have to compromise their futures because of a economically precarious present, Brazil is still in flux...and that flux is very dysfunctional. As an analogy, I kept thinking about the American Post Office: a gigantic bureaucracy mostly employed with civil servants who did not need much preparation to apply and, once hired, are not given much much incentive to preform above a mediocre level.
So, in many state schools across the country, the sincere desire to educate the future is often overtaken by the instinct to survive the present. And the result, most likely, is that what was unequally distributed yesterday will continue to be so tomorrow because in the 21st century what you earn is what you learn.
During my visit at Aristobolo Barbosa Leao, I entered a school whose budget for paper had been cut off! Literally, there was no paper for teachers to hand out to students!!! So, of course, there was also no budget for hallways or classrooms to be decorated or painted. What little color there was in the school appeared indiscriminately as I walked up stairwells, through hallways, and into classrooms. Inside those classrooms though was a student body that made the most of their neglected status and filled their day (which ends at noon in Brazil) with laughter, conversation with friends, or their smartphones. But while I didn't witness any anger or fighting with the teaching staff, I didn't witness much education either. Often students spoke over teachers, teachers then spoke over students, who briefly quieted down for 15 minutes to listen until their attention waned again and the farce of education continued.
Upon reflection, it is very difficult to cast blame because there so many things going wrong at the same time.
At the bottom, students enter a disorganized world where the figures of authority and knowledge appear unprepared and impotent in their sincere desire to educate. As a result, these adolescents take advantage of their situation and approach their education as a cynical daily exercise that will not have any effect on their futures because their graduation is guaranteed so long as they "go through the motions." In addition, these students then go home to a family and society that "ranked second to last out of 21 countries on the Varkey Gems Foundation’s 2013 Global Teacher Status Index, which used surveys to compare teaching to other professions and gauges how much respect teachers get from the public."
In the middle, many (not most) of the teachers I met approached their profession on an hourly basis. As employees of a state government that grossly undervalues their labor, these teachers will work for up three schools simultaneously to get the most out of their employment contracts with state. (Crazy, right?)
What allows teachers to approach their job as they say in the states as a "hustle" is that Brazil's public schools are open from 7AM to 10 PM to make allowances for adolescents and adults who must work in the mornings or afternoons or evenings to support themselves and/or their families in the Brazilian economy. Unlike many developed nations, where education is valued enough financially to allow its citizens to not have to compromise their futures because of a economically precarious present, Brazil is still in flux...and that flux is very dysfunctional. As an analogy, I kept thinking about the American Post Office: a gigantic bureaucracy mostly employed with civil servants who did not need much preparation to apply and, once hired, are not given much much incentive to preform above a mediocre level.
So, in many state schools across the country, the sincere desire to educate the future is often overtaken by the instinct to survive the present. And the result, most likely, is that what was unequally distributed yesterday will continue to be so tomorrow because in the 21st century what you earn is what you learn.